John W. Mayhew would have liked the flyover at his graveside service on Saturday afternoon. Preceding a brief service that included military honors, a large flock of Canada geese flew over in chevron.
There were gasps as all looked overhead and watched the event. The timing, in unison with the salute, was perhaps too precise, too deliberate to be an accident.
The late Mr. Mayhew was celebrated through stories and tributes out in the open air of the town’s cemetery and later inside the Agricultural Society hall with a potluck dinner and old-fashioned musicale. Friends, family, colleagues and others came to listen to the stories and songs.
Richard Knabel, a West Tisbury selectman, spoke at the cemetery of Mr. Mayhew’s years of service to West Tisbury, of a man rooted in the community who wore many different hats, from school teacher to selectman to fireman to adviser to the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group.
“We know people who are bigger than life,” said Chris Murphy of Chilmark, who recalled hunting and fishing with Mr. Mayhew through the years and being struck by the man’s capacity to embrace so much.
Herb Custer of Vineyard Haven, retired schools superintendent, recalled with tears how many knew Mr. Mayhew as a teacher, but he knew him in other ways: “He was my colleague, my friend and my role model,” Mr. Custer said.
Kent Healy of West Tisbury spoke of working early in the spring of 1952 for Mr. Mayhew in his oyster cultivating and harvesting operation on the Great Pond.
Mr. Mayhew died on Jan. 10 at the age of 91.
His daughter Deborah Mayhew recalled how her father was endlessly active. “He loved everything he did,” she said, noting his self-sufficiency whether on land or sea.
Daughter Sarah Mayhew recalled duck hunting with her father and hearing his fatherly advice: “Be careful.”
Both daughters spoke separately of their father’s prowess for preparing meals, the product of hunting and fishing expeditions around the Island.
Mr. Mayhew’s widow, Shirley Mayhew, sat quietly with friends and listened.
Several spoke about Mr. Mayhew’s spirited ability to go hunting for birds at dawn, stop his car in the parking lot of the high school before school, and in a timely fashion transform himself from the outdoorsmen they all adored to the teacher with the tie and with principles that they all respected.
Lobster pots decorated the Agricultural Hall. One propped vertically held the projector for a slide show. Another trap was topped with a bouquet of flowers.
Jack Mayhew shared memories of assembling balsa airplanes under the careful eye of his father. As father and son, they shared a love for airplanes. That love helped Jack take an interest for a time in flying as a fish spotter.
Jack said his father, a World War II ace Navy pilot, was amazed his son could fly so long between landings. The younger Mr. Mayhew responded: “I could fly for 18 hours at a stretch [but] rarely was anyone shooting at me.”
The afternoon was an opportunity for the Mayhew grandchildren to share their love, too. They made music and told tales, as their grandfather would have liked. Nearing the close of the service, three grandchildren — Katie, Lucy and Caroline — led the gathering in singing Amazing Grace. Sitting in the middle, Lucy played her grandfather’s 1929 Martin guitar.
Later there was music from the Flying Elbows and Peter Huntington. And people wondered aloud: Who had spoken to the Canada geese and organized the flyover?
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